India’s crude steel production fell over 4% to 8.478 million tonnes (MT) in August 2020, according to the World Steel Association (worldsteel).
The country had produced 8.869 MT of crude steel during the same month last year, the global industry body said in its latest report.
However, global steel output has started showing a positive trend, the data showed.
“World crude steel production for 64 countries reporting to the worldsteel was 156.244 MT in August 2020, registering a rise of 0.6% compared to August 2019,” the worldsteel said.
“Due to the ongoing difficulties presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of this month’s figures are estimates that may be revised with next month’s production update,” it added.
Global steel production was at 155.374 MT in August 2019. China registered a 8.4% year-on-year growth in steel output at 94.845 MT during August 2020 as compared to 87.499 MT in August 2019.
The US produced 5.588 MT of crude steel in August 2020, registering a fall of 24.4% as compared to 7.396 MT output in August 2019.
Japan produced 6.446 MT of crude steel in August 2020, down 20.6% from 8.120 MT a year ago. South Korea’s steel production for the month stood at 5.800 MT, down 1.8% as compared to 5.905 MT in August 2019, the data showed.
Germany produced 2.830 MT of crude steel in August 2020, down 13.4% from August 2019, while Italy produced 0.939 MT of crude steel in the month, up 9.7% from a year ago.
France produced 0.722 MT of crude steel in August 2020, down 31.2% over August 2019. Spain’s steel production for August 2020 stood at 0.696 MT, down 32.5% year-on-year.
“Brazil produced 2.7 MT of crude steel in August 2020, up by 6.5% from August 2019. Turkey’s crude steel production for August 2020 was at 3.2 MT, up 22.9% from August 2019,” worldsteel said.